Has anyone else had the experience where they killed it first semester, and then got crushed 2nd? I am in panic mode, all grades above median last semester, and just got a B in a class I thought I crushed... seriously felt like I left that exam with an A. So I had a 3.7...now it looks like I will be sitting at a 3.42 or so (unless a prof who gives almost exclusively B+s gives me an A-)

BigLawer wrote:Has anyone else had the experience where they killed it first semester, and then got crushed 2nd? I am in panic mode, all grades above median last semester, and just got a B in a class I thought I crushed... seriously felt like I left that exam with an A. So I had a 3.7...now it looks like I will be sitting at a 3.42 or so (unless a prof who gives almost exclusively B+s gives me an A-)

Anyone else have this experience? Curious how OGI went.

It will go the way your final GPA suggests it will go. Your mix between the semesters is - or is very nearly - irrelevant.

BruceWayne wrote:Wow a lot of misinformation is starting to pop up in this thread about grading.

1. Professor's often vary wildly in how they grade (just as an example Jeffries, Johnson, and Harmon are all professors that hand out a ton of B- and below grades in their courses. While professors like Kordana and Walt don't give out many sub B grades at all--sometimes literally none in the former's case. And the idea that it's "hard" to get that sort of grade is just wrong). That's one of the reasons schools like NYU, Columbia, NU etc. have enough sense to mandate exactly how professors are to distribute grades. There's a reason UVA is in the minority in the top 14 on this topic. Another thing people need to consider is that this is UVA law--not a run of the mill law school. The competition is high and everyone knows how grade focused firms are. You can quickly get a B- just for doing something like typing up an exam that is only 10 pages. Fall below that and getting a C+ is not hard at all.

2. Knowing which professors give out those kinds of grades is obviously unimportant first semester when you don't have a choice in your professors. But second semester that info is critical. You do not want to put yourself in a position where you end up getting a B- or worse spring of 1L from an elective. If you're a student who is right at a 3.3 after first semester, or below, that could instantly mean no firm job and suddenly being at risk for no job at all. On the other hand if your'e aware of a class that gives out a lot of B+s you could take that with the assurance that it won't hurt your GPA, and then focus harder on a more difficult class that you have trouble with.

3. Working "hard" means literally nothing--probably less than nothing. The way law school grades are given out that just doesn't have much of an impact. Making matters worse is that everyone works extremely hard so that essentially neutralizes that as an advantage for most people (I say most because some people do things like study 14 hours a day--maybe for them you can say that working hard is giving them an advantage. I don't know).

4. Although there are some nice professors who are concerned with not hurting a student's employment prospects--that's not the majority. If they don't agree with your exam, it's too short, or they are especially impressed by a few select student's exams, etc. etc. most will not think twice about giving out B- or below grades. This is especially true of the older professors.

Having finished 1L, I'm not sure I agree with your sentiment. It's not a bad thing that some professors give a lot of B-'s or even a C+, because very few people get a C+ and the overall curve is the same. This allows these professors to give more A's to really good exams. While it admittedly would be awful to get a C+, I'm sure these C+ exams are to the professor clearly based on being so grossly inferior to the A exams. An exam that would normally be perfectly fine or maybe a bit below average is not getting a C+.

If everyone is bunched around a 3.3 then the people who will get the jobs will be those who are the most charming at the interviews, have experience for a major corporate company or happen to be well connected. The disparity in grades allows many who would otherwise have nothing special to have an opportunity to get jobs based on the merit of their performance on law school exams.

The bottom line is not everyone gets jobs, and if you can get into a school like UVa then you can learn and read about enough test taking strategies and enough of the course materials to avoid ever getting a C+. If everyone had a 3.3, the employment #'s would be the same, but the 50% who get lesser jobs or no jobs would have really never had a chance to make law school a worthwhile gamble from the get go.

It would be unfair to the person who studies really hard and does their best to get say a 3.4 overall on merit but is graded down to a 3.3 so the boomer whose dad's a partner can party and merit a 3.2, but wind up getting the same 3.3. This leads to a scenario where the 3.2 is clearly taking jobs away from the 3.4.

BruceWayne wrote: 2. Knowing which professors give out those kinds of grades is obviously unimportant first semester when you don't have a choice in your professors. But second semester that info is critical. You do not want to put yourself in a position where you end up getting a B- or worse spring of 1L from an elective. If you're a student who is right at a 3.3 after first semester, or below, that could instantly mean no firm job and suddenly being at risk for no job at all. On the other hand if your'e aware of a class that gives out a lot of B+s you could take that with the assurance that it won't hurt your GPA, and then focus harder on a more difficult class that you have trouble with.

I don't understand. You choose second semester electives in November, no? At that point you have no idea if you're above median or below median, so you have no way of knowing which distributions are beneficial. Isn't that effectively the same as not having a choice which distribution you get?

You can add drop in January if you so desire. I don't agree with BW on anything else, though, we've been over it numerous times.

5ky wrote:You can add drop in January if you so desire. I don't agree with BW on anything else, though, we've been over it numerous times.

I too have often disagreed with BW, but I think some of his post is helpful. If you're at median, taking a prof that has a wide curve is a gamble, and probably one to avoid - especially if in your second semester. While you might hit the jackpot and get an A+ by taking PR with Cohen or something similar, there's an almost equal chance of ending up with a C+ and your 3.3 GPA just went down to a 3.2.

I also think it's important that where a professor has this sort of flexibility that could affect a student's entire future, that information by way of grade distributions should be available to the student body.

I tend to think that the info should be available to the student body, but it's hard for me to get up in arms about it cuz 1) I'm a graduate now and what do I care; and 2) you guys get the benefit of a more relaxed curving paradigm and I can't fight the urge to be like damn dude, stop complaining.

5ky wrote:You can add drop in January if you so desire. I don't agree with BW on anything else, though, we've been over it numerous times.

I too have often disagreed with BW, but I think some of his post is helpful. If you're at median, taking a prof that has a wide curve is a gamble, and probably one to avoid - especially if in your second semester. While you might hit the jackpot and get an A+ by taking PR with Cohen or something similar, there's an almost equal chance of ending up with a C+ and your 3.3 GPA just went down to a 3.2.

I also think it's important that where a professor has this sort of flexibility that could affect a student's entire future, that information by way of grade distributions should be available to the student body.

Oh yeah, I'm all for gaming wherever possible. And I'm not a fan of them taking away the grade books. I can see why they might not want to release them anymore for future classes, but they could have kept them there. But what I'm saying is that BW vastly overrates the difference between UVA's system and others.

I couldn't find anything on Columbia except an article that says on average, only 24% of students will get an A level grade and 10% receive below a B-, but that was from 2009 and I'm not sure if they changed it.

These just aren't that different from UVA. UVA might be in the minority in terms of not having rough guidelines, but the grades are comparable, particularly the number of B-s and below, which is what BW is concerned about. It may seem like UVA professors can do whatever the hell they want, but if we instituted a policy like that, any change would be almost imperceptible. Cohen's classes would max out on the A+s and, maybe, C+s, and Abraham would hit the top end for B+s. But people keep mentioning those two because they are the greatest examples of flat and narrow curves -- and for Cohen we're talking (on average) 2-3 more A+s and C+s than a normal class.

When you see the raw scores and distributions of exams, the A+s and C+s stick out like sore thumbs; they are WAY above and WAY below their peers. Professors aren't giving out C+s because they can, they give them out because you have turned in a horrible exam, and giving them a gentleman's B- isn't fair to the people who got B-s or anybody else.

You won't stumble into a C+ simply because you wrote a short exam. Some of the very best exams are 10 pages or not much longer -- and under even, depending on the class. Believe it or not, in a class of 370, there are a handful of people who don't study a lot and don't care all that much. Maybe they don't really understand the material, or maybe they don't give a shit, but I know people who "studied" a few days before the exam by just rereading the casebook. No outline, no supplements, just rereading casebook and going into the final with the casebook and class notes, and then write a 6-8 page exam full of holes and errors because that's all their utter lack of preparation and understanding of the material will allow. I know it seems hard to believe that not everybody is putting in 10-12 hours at the end, with copious work during the semester, etc., but it's true. Simply by posting on this site, I'm quite confident not a single of you 0Ls will get a C+.

Last edited by 5ky on Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

All the 0Ls really need to stop worrying about grades. You shouldn't worry about your performance before ever sitting through a single day of class. Enjoy your summer and worry about grades in December.

Interestingly, I just checked my CSO transcript to see what the percentile benchmarks are, and they are no longer there. Maybe because they will need to recalculate them based on changes to the grading policy, or are they always changed depending on class performance (i.e., c/o 2013's 25th percentile is slightly different than 2014)? It seems more likely that all of these grading changes, while frustratingly less transparent to students, also makes our grades less comprehensible/meaningful to employers. Maybe they are not going to publish the benchmarks anymore either? Dean Mahoney has indicated that UVA is not going to abandon grades altogether, but maybe all of these changes represent a compromise.

Legal_Padawan wrote:On a completely different note:Is there a sizable contingent of Redskins fans at UVA? Where do people usually go to watch the games?

I know there's a decent number of Skins fans and I personally know a couple diehards. Not sure where they go to watch the games, but Buffalo Wild Wings on Arlington and Wings Over by Ivy are both solid choices.

Hey guys, I did a forum search but didn't find much. What's the cutoff for VLR and when do invites go out? From what I've found, seems to range from 3.71-3.75, but I can't find anything more specific than "early to mid July."

olive16 wrote:Hey guys, I did a forum search but didn't find much. What's the cutoff for VLR and when do invites go out? From what I've found, seems to range from 3.71-3.75, but I can't find anything more specific than "early to mid July."

It's the top 25 students, so it will be different every year depending on how students #26, 25, and 24 did. Historically it's above 3.70 and well below 3.8, 3.71 to 3.75 is probably about right.

It happens sometime later in the summer, I forget exactly when. It was definitely second half of the summer my year.